Use-Value

30Mar10

Use-value is the physical value of a commodity in use, that can only be realised through consumption. Marx says that the “utility of a thing makes it a use-value”. I did not attend the screening of Dogtown and Z-boys, but I can see the link between use-value and skateboarding culture. Skating culture became something that anyone could buy into. It became mainstream. Marx writes that “Use-value is the immediate physical entity in which a definate economic relationship -exchange value – is expressed.” A commodity must have a use-value, but use-value is independent of whether or not something is a commodity. In the case of Dogtown, the attitude and subculture of the skateboarders exhibited use-value to the generations of youths to which it spread.